Hello. The world is falling apart. I’m terrified, but here we are. Last week I was very much not in the mood to be funny or do anything but eat eggless cookie dough in my bed. But now it’s time to fight. We have many battles ahead of us, and while I won’t claim the sanctity of shade be one of the most important, it is…

On Friday, Afropunk London announced that it would replace MIA in its headlining slot, after a month of public outcry over her statements about Black Lives Matter. Today, the festival devoted to amplifying the creativity of black musicians has announced its new headliner, Grace Jones.

In June, when Afropunk London announced that MIA would headline, the festival created to amplify unsung black musicians was immediately criticized for booking an artist who, in April, essentially belittled Black Lives Matter in a way that belied a surprising ignorance about both black people and Muslims.

One of MIA’s greatest traits is the way she speaks unfiltered in her music and in interviews, passionately articulating the political causes she supports and criticizing the practices she disdains. She’s never been too finessed about it, though, which has made her somewhat more relatable a figure in the realm of…

World Recycle Week begins April 18, and M.I.A. has teamed up with H&M for a song, “Rewear It,” advocating recycling, as well as the general specter of climate change. In the accompanying video/advert, a selection of cool people around the world are seen to be essentially waking up to the concept of recycling, jamming…

Maya Arulpragasam has long been fascinated with borders, a Sri Lankan refugee to London who’s transcended them by recording her albums all over the world. But she’s been more explicit as of late, as the border takes on a deeper and more violent significance; her “Borders” video referenced refugees from places like…

Last week, M.I.A. released “Borders,” a rallying cry for the current refugee crisis. Today, she shared the song’s self-directed video, which shows the singer accompanying refugees as they scale barbed-wire fences, pack themselves on crowded boats and wade through the ocean during their journey.

Janelle Monáe attended Stella McCartney’s show at Paris Fashion Week Monday and was ready to steer herself into Spring 2016, amirite? I don’t know why she’s holding her braids like handlebars, but it looks cool; very editorial.

Though MIA’s 2013 album, Matangi, was generally well received, it was not well understood. This was, in part, because of many Western music critics’ lack of curiosity about cultures outside their own, and specifically the music within; Matangi was an assertion of MIA’s globality, but also centered specifically on a…

This week marks the ten-year anniversary of MIA's Arular, an album which quite literally changed pop music and presaged the way the internet would create an avenue for marginalized genres across the globe to thrive outside their communities. Of course, part of this is due to MIA's collaboration with Diplo, who only…

Earlier this month at the Odd Future Carnival, Pharrell previewed a bit of this Gwen track and said it was "about feminism." Today, Stefani dropped the album art and the song hit the internet tout suite. Not totally sure what this has to do with feminism, really except, is everyone just discovering Le Tigre or what…

Ashish Gupta is a Delhi-born British designer whose inventive fusion of sequins and not-so-obvious pop culture references have attracted the devoted lust of every London club kid worth their salt. In a time when American designers seem to be in a contest d'thirst for the attention and cache of THE YOUTH (cough; cough…

Katy Perry’s love life is back! Just when you had finished fretting about her crispy Coachella sunburn, reports of her latest romance have surfaced — and we might want to root for this one, with some provisions.

Today, in "are you fucking kidding me," the NFL has demanded an additional $15.1 million from M.I.A. in restitution for briefly raising her middle finger during the Super Bowl halftime show two years ago. This brings the entire arbitration claim against her to $16.6 million.